Electronic converters known in the art may be employed in an arrangement as exemplified in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 shows a voltage source BAT, e.g. a battery, providing a voltage VBAT at terminals 100 and 102. In the example considered herein, the terminal 102 is coupled to a reference (ground) terminal GND, so that the voltage VBAT is measured with respect to a reference (ground) voltage, typically assumed as a zero-voltage level.
An electronic converter 10 may have an input port (i.e., a pair of input terminals) coupled to the terminals 100 and 102 to receive the input voltage VBAT, and an output port for providing a regulated output voltage VOUT at the output terminals 104 and 106.
An output load OL may be coupled between the output terminals 104 and 106, thus being supplied with the regulated voltage VOUT provided by the electronic converter 10.
It will be appreciated that the output load OL, as well as the voltage source BAT, may be distinct elements from the embodiments of the present disclosure.
Optionally, the (negative) output terminal 106 of the electronic converter 10 may be coupled to the same reference (ground) terminal GND, as shown in FIG. 1 with dotted lines. However, such coupling is not mandatory.
For instance, the (negative) output terminal 106 may be coupled to a different reference terminal and the output voltage VOUT may be measured with respect to a different reference voltage, i.e., the voltage drop between the (negative) output terminal 106 and the reference (ground) terminal GND may be different from zero.
In the case of DC/DC converters, wherein an input DC voltage VBAT is converted into an output regulated DC voltage VOUT, the output voltage VOUT may be higher, lower or equal to the input voltage VBAT.
To this regard, different types of switching converters are known in the art: buck converters provide an output voltage VOUT<VBAT, boost converters provide an output voltage VOUT>VBAT, and buck-boost converters provide an output voltage VOUT which may be higher or lower than the input voltage VBAT. Buck-boost converters are particularly well suited in case the required output voltage VOUT is quite close to the input voltage VBAT.
It will be appreciated that such buck, boost and buck-boost electronic converters (as well as other converter architectures) are well known in the art, thus a more detailed description of such known converter architectures will not be provided in the present disclosure. For example, in this context may be cited document “Topologies for switched mode power supplies” by L. Wuidart, STMicroelectronics Application Note, 1999.
Moreover, it will be appreciated that reference to buck, boost and buck-boost converters is by way of example only, and that one or more embodiments may involve other converter architectures.